Campus Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Mentoring

Campus Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Mentoring

For more information, see the campus website.

The Campus Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Mentoring recognizes exemplary efforts of members of the graduate faculty in advising and serving graduate students. The award consists of the following components:

$500 to the Outstanding Mentor Award recipient for personal use.

A Graduate College Outstanding Mentor Fellowship of $6,000 to the graduate program that nominated the Outstanding Mentor recipient. The graduate program through its regular process for identifying fellowship winners will select the Outstanding Mentor Fellow. The Fellowship is to be awarded in the 2004-05 academic year. Units may award the Outstanding Mentor Fellowship as a supplement to an assistantship appointment or another fellowship appointment. Fellowships of $6,000 for the academic year or $3,000 per term will be accompanied by a full waiver of tuition and the service fee unless the waiver accompanies a concurrent appointment.

$1,000 to the graduate program that nominated the Outstanding Mentor recipient for conference travel for graduate students. The graduate program will select outstanding Mentor Conference Travel Award recipients for travel in the next FY.

Criteria
Excellent guidance of individual research and creative projects, including theses: general assistance to graduate students, including advising for graduate student organizations, conflict resolution, and advocacy for graduate students; impact on students; other contributions to professional development of graduate students, including supervision of teaching assistants and research assistants, and career preparation and advancement.

Members of the graduate faculty who have served on the Urbana-Champaign campus for at least four calendar years are eligible for consideration. Department Chairs and Heads are also eligible. A faculty member who has received either this award or the Campus Award for Excellence in Graduate and Professional Teaching will not be eligible for nomination during the next five-year period. Persons who have been nominated in previous years, but who did not actually receive awards, will, if nominated, again be eligible for consideration in future years.

Solicitation
Fall
Memo sent to departments.

Nomination
The following information should be included in the nomination. Adherence to the following order of presentation is requested in order to simplify the work of selection committees:

A one-page cover letter, signed by the nominator, which includes the nominee's name, department, college, and number of years at Urbana-Champaign.

A narrative statement presenting the case for the nominee. This statement should comment on the nominee's overall impact on past and present graduate students.

A self report on the nominee's goals, methods, and philosophy in advising graduate students, not to exceed two pages.

Not more than six letters of support. At least three letters must come from students who have graduated. Letters from students should be solicited by the departmental selection committee, not by the nominee. The nominee may be asked to suggest some names, and the department should add some names.

Nominations should not exceed six double-spaced, typewritten pages, excluding the cover letter and the letters of support. Nomination materials should not have any special cover stock or binding.

Due
December 1
To departmental main offices.
January 15
Submit nominations to the Associate Dean for Academic Programs, 206 Engineering Hall, MC-272.
January 31
Eight (8) copies of the final nomination papers should be submitted to Nora Few, Assistant Dean of the Graduate College, 204 Coble Hall, MC-322. Late nominations will not be accepted.

Selection
Department: Graduate students, faculty members, administrators, or alumni may nominate faculty for this award. The departmental committee must include graduate students. Preferably, no more than half of the committee should consist of faculty members. Faculty members who have been nominated during a particular year should not serve on the committee during the same year.

College: Once the departmental review committee has identified its final candidates, the names of those candidates will be forwarded to the academic college in priority order. The College of Engineering may forward two nominations to the Graduate College.

Campus: A committee of faculty and graduate students will review the nominations, and the winners will be announced at the campus Instructional Awards banquet in April.

Logistics
April
Award winner is announced at the campus Instructional Awards banquet.

Previous Recipients (College of Engineering)